1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer controlled apparatus such as a missile, for example, and, more particularly, to a method for enhancing such apparatus performance at the time of Use.
2. Description of Related Art
Although the present invention is believed to provide beneficial results when used with other computer controlled apparatus, it is considered to be especially advantageous for use with a missile and will be particularly described in that connection. The various apparatus parts of a missile at the present time have relatively tight tolerance requirements which are reflected by corresponding manufacturing cost in maintaining the tolerances and loss occasioned by reject materials and apparatus which exceed the tolerance ranges. In computer control of a missile, the tolerances of the hardware must be such that worst case errors of all of the apparatus units involved have to be close enough to the software expected nominal value in order to insure that a specified performance is obtained. This means that if some part of the hardware is outside the limits of tolerance it must be rejected because it will not provide the required performance with the given missile software.
Also, there are many cases where hardware tolerances cannot be reasonably controlled. For example, in certain cases, a launch cycle time calibration must be performed in order to measure a given hardware performance characteristic. Such a calibration reduces the error between the hardware and the software expected value, however, it does not entirely eliminate the error. Still further, many of the measurements taken during calibration are noisy and can be corrupted by external interference, however, additional time cannot usually be taken to reduce the measurement noise because frequently the calibration at launch must be made within a specific time window. Additionally, computer software being used has to make certain assumptions concerning the hardware operation which may not be accurate where there is an inability to make a direct measurement of the hardware.